Re: VPC machine on an IBM Thinkpad x-term video problem

From: Enrique Perez-Terron (enrio_at_online.no)
Date: 10/01/05 

Date: Sat, 01 Oct 2005 03:04:15 +0200

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 18:55:19 +0200, J Burford Fields <jbfields3@gmail.com> wrote:

> Just tried to install White Box Linux in a VPC machine on an IBM
> Thinkpad. I took the defaults and it came up in X mode and obviously
> is not right for the video and screen--unusable.
>
>
> I can re-install, but it took a LONG time to install. Isn't there a
> way to switch to text-only mode at startup?

In order to turn off X, you need to get in...

Hit Ctrl-Alt-F1. That should swith to virtual terminal one. There are
usually six virtual terminals set up, accessed through the keys Ctrl-Alt-F1
through Ctrl-Alt-F6. You will find a login prompt in each.

Once logged in, you can disable X for the current session with the
command

    init 3

To make it boot into the mode in subsequent boots, edit the file
/etc/inittab, the line saying:

I the file /etc/inittab, there is a line saying:

    id:5:initdefault:

Change the digit 5 to 3. That will turn off X.

If you can't get in to say init 3, or to edit inittab, you must boot into
single-user mode. On the boot kernel command line, say "single"
(in addition to any other options that might be there). This gives you
a shell after the most basic boot-time setup, but before any services have
been started.

The most drastic one: On the boot kernel command line, say init=/bin/bash
(but don't do that unless in utter despair. It's not dangerous, just
extremely frustrating because nothing seems to work so early in the boot
process.)

> Next question: Although I use to be a UNIX admin (circa 1985), it's
> been years, and I just barely got Red Hat to find the wireless access
> to Internet on another machine, I'm at a loss for what video settings
> would work on this machine, and how to change them once install has
> been completed.

I cannot help you with this one, I dont know what VPC is, and I nothing
in particular about IBM Thinkpad. Hopefully others can.

If not, you will have to come back here with fairly detailed descriptions
of the symptoms and any other observables that might enable anyone of us
to use his intuition.

Look in the files in /var/log, especially

    /var/log/dmesg -- kernel messages during boot, before services start.
    /var/log/messages -- All sorts of messages, also kernel, and many services.
    /var/log/Xorg.0.log -- The X server

-Enrique

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